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Will the new iPhone speed the rise of a 'cashless' society

There
are some analysts that say that the ribbons spotted at the top of this
iPhone prototype point to an "NFC" chip inside, which expedites
purchases at the cash register. Users with this device can merely swipe
the phone, which is connected to either a debit or credit card.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The next iPhone, believed to launch in as soon as two weeks time, is expected to come with the built-in chip to assist in small payments.

The NFC chip is seen as the successor to the chip-and-pin, acting as a small, no-contact card which can be waved against scanners at cash registers to initiate a payment. Debit cards already have this feature installed, and certain retailers such as Pret a Manger already use the technology.

Other phones already have an in-built NFC. Google has made a big play for the market with its "Wallet" accounts in the United States.

Apple will need to embrace a technology before it sees widespread adoption among the public, and it could take an "iWallet" feature to bring a new payment system to the public.

9to5Mac, which has sources within Apple, has found references to NFC code within iPhone prototypes, and they have spotted "NFC connectors" within purported images of the phone's hardware.

9to5 speculates that "Apple could tie in with a payment processor like Citibank's PayPass system for credit card transactions - or it could become a payment processor of sorts with its hundreds of millions of credit cards already on file at iTunes."

NFC can also instantly transfer documents or images between phones simply by tapping them together, as demonstrated by rival Samsung's "Beam" feature on the recent Galaxy 3.

Other iPhone news includes a flat-screen maker LG Display announcing production of screens expected to be for the new phone and images showing the notorious new "dock connector," which is a stripped-down version of the power and data port seen on previous generations of iPhones and iPads.

The "NFC" chip is believed to be located on the top left of the phone, underneath the sticker in the left image, and the image on the right shows the "NFC cables" in close-up.